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A review by graywacke
Fanon by John Edgar Wideman
Before I got involved with online book groups my main source of book reviews was the New York Times. Back in 2008 I read a review of this book there and, while the review was probably quickly lost, the impression of the review stuck with me. I had this idea of an author struggling with himself and it just hung around in my head. I never saw any other reference to the book. Years later, in 2011, I was in a Borders, and they still existed (I know, because I documented it), and I stumbled across this book in their bargain books pile and remembered the book review and quickly grabbed it. Then it sat on my book shelves where it quietly collected dust for a number of years. (The NY Times review is available Here.)
I have been looking at my bookshelves lately trying to find some books to actually pull off read. I find this an oddly disappointing process for reasons I haven't been able to figure out. Anyway, this one appealed because I've been thinking about it all these years and it's a nice, little hardcover.
I know very little about [a:Frantz Fanon|37728|Frantz Fanon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1258146314p2/37728.jpg], a black decorated WWII veteran for France from Martinique who later fought against France for Algeria, and later wrote the pro-violence [b:The Wretched of the Earth|66933|The Wretched of the Earth|Frantz Fanon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1427605420s/66933.jpg|865773], but I did know coming in that this wasn't about him so much as the author using his exploration of Fannon as prop of sorts. Wideman is writing about himself, or maybe about struggling to write about himself, and also about racism.
It's a tough book to read, partially because of Wideman's layers. He tells us he's writing about a fictional Thomas who is struggling to write about Franz Fannon, and who receives a package of a severed head and then Wideman mixes which level is narrating—him, about him, about Thomas, is Thomas narrating? He goes through a large fictional and impossible conversation with film director [a:Jean-Luc Godard|179794|Jean-Luc Godard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1445580131p2/179794.jpg], where the text cuts in and out of proposed cinematic scenes. But what really makes this a tough read is Wideman's run-on sentences - apparent scattered thought processes that circle back on themselves and correct, refine or contradict themselves while randomly switching topics and focus and then returning. These are page length convoluted sentences that are difficult to follow and often don't have any clear point.
Then mixed in is Wideman's story about his real-life brother, who is decades into a lifetime prison sentence without parole. Through the difficulty of this book, his visits to his brother with his mother stand out clear and powerful. His brother's words and Wideman's inability to express what his brother is going through, or the costs in time and other, and what this all means and how he feels about it is extremely moving. (He doesn't say so in the book, but wikipedia tells me his brother was involved in some kind of contraband exchange where one person (not him) shot and killed another.)
Anyway, after all that, after all the wondering about this book, my main impression is the struggle to read these long sentences, and how long each page ahead looked as a saw another long sentence with little clear purpose. It's a disappointing book that has probably gone stale. It probably needed to be read in 2008.
I did have two interesting takeaways. The first was the mixed connotations of the severed head Thomas finds himself in possession of. He disposes of it in the East River, bringing up to me an image of Orpheus's severed head floating down a river still singing. It represents Fannon's shortened life and restricted life of black America and of Wideman's brother and of Wideman's own struggling and limits of writing. The other was the sense that maybe this mutilated language was itself an expression of how difficult it is for Wideman to say what he wants to say in the way he wants to say, a concession of his own struggle.
-----------------------------------------------
53. Fanon by John Edgar Wideman
published: 2008
format: 229 page hardcover
acquired: 2011
read: Dec 3-10
rating: 3
I have been looking at my bookshelves lately trying to find some books to actually pull off read. I find this an oddly disappointing process for reasons I haven't been able to figure out. Anyway, this one appealed because I've been thinking about it all these years and it's a nice, little hardcover.
I know very little about [a:Frantz Fanon|37728|Frantz Fanon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1258146314p2/37728.jpg], a black decorated WWII veteran for France from Martinique who later fought against France for Algeria, and later wrote the pro-violence [b:The Wretched of the Earth|66933|The Wretched of the Earth|Frantz Fanon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1427605420s/66933.jpg|865773], but I did know coming in that this wasn't about him so much as the author using his exploration of Fannon as prop of sorts. Wideman is writing about himself, or maybe about struggling to write about himself, and also about racism.
It's a tough book to read, partially because of Wideman's layers. He tells us he's writing about a fictional Thomas who is struggling to write about Franz Fannon, and who receives a package of a severed head and then Wideman mixes which level is narrating—him, about him, about Thomas, is Thomas narrating? He goes through a large fictional and impossible conversation with film director [a:Jean-Luc Godard|179794|Jean-Luc Godard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1445580131p2/179794.jpg], where the text cuts in and out of proposed cinematic scenes. But what really makes this a tough read is Wideman's run-on sentences - apparent scattered thought processes that circle back on themselves and correct, refine or contradict themselves while randomly switching topics and focus and then returning. These are page length convoluted sentences that are difficult to follow and often don't have any clear point.
Then mixed in is Wideman's story about his real-life brother, who is decades into a lifetime prison sentence without parole. Through the difficulty of this book, his visits to his brother with his mother stand out clear and powerful. His brother's words and Wideman's inability to express what his brother is going through, or the costs in time and other, and what this all means and how he feels about it is extremely moving. (He doesn't say so in the book, but wikipedia tells me his brother was involved in some kind of contraband exchange where one person (not him) shot and killed another.)
Anyway, after all that, after all the wondering about this book, my main impression is the struggle to read these long sentences, and how long each page ahead looked as a saw another long sentence with little clear purpose. It's a disappointing book that has probably gone stale. It probably needed to be read in 2008.
I did have two interesting takeaways. The first was the mixed connotations of the severed head Thomas finds himself in possession of. He disposes of it in the East River, bringing up to me an image of Orpheus's severed head floating down a river still singing. It represents Fannon's shortened life and restricted life of black America and of Wideman's brother and of Wideman's own struggling and limits of writing. The other was the sense that maybe this mutilated language was itself an expression of how difficult it is for Wideman to say what he wants to say in the way he wants to say, a concession of his own struggle.
-----------------------------------------------
53. Fanon by John Edgar Wideman
published: 2008
format: 229 page hardcover
acquired: 2011
read: Dec 3-10
rating: 3